This post from Gerard made me laugh! He’s proving with humour that it’s not all Doom & Gloom. Well worth a read, but remember to like his post, not mine!
Category: Life in General!
Days gone by
While catching up on reading the other day I came across a lovely post from Cathi over at Dear Anonymous Friend. In it she paid a wonderful tribute to her friend who had recently passed away and recalled memories from their childhood. It started me thinking about my own.
It would be hard for the younger generation (and I’m not that old) to understand that not so long ago there was life before mobile phones and technology. As Cathi alluded to in her post, the preferred method of getting your friends to come out and play was usually either banging on their door or yelling for them at the top of your voice.
Instead of mobile phones and games consoles there were fields, trees, rivers, streams and laneways that stretched for miles into glorious countryside which we were able to weave into any fairytale we chose.
Back then my games console was a kite donated to me by my Uncle. I would spend hours dancing through fields trying to make it fly, and when successful, watching it’s 60ft tail whip and whirl in the wind. Cowpats on the soles of my shoes were a regularity, because after all, it’s hard to see the ground when your eye is on the sky.
Our local shop had a vast array of sweets hidden behind a glass counter, sticky with fingerprints from people like myself eager to choose the best options possible for inclusion in a 10p mix. For anyone who remembers such a counter, Bazooka’s, Fish & Chips, milkteeth and Dracula’s teeth were my favourites.
I went to the shop on this little red bike which had the capability to fold in half. It wasn’t anything special, but I attached an old car Ariel to the back which I then tied ribbons to the top of. I must have looked like a right eejit, but back then I thought I was the bee’s knees as I cycled to meet my friends.
Even as we got older we still made do with what we had. The beach, the place which had provided so much fun when we were younger became the place we would visit to discuss our problems. Somehow everything seemed better under the roar of the waves from the rough sea.
Life seemed a lot easier then, more carefree, and it was, because by and large we had until that point been shielded from the complexities that life had to offer.
If only we had known then what lay ahead.
There are a lot of things I don’t remember about my childhood. They are locked in my poor brain somewhere and usually it takes a reminder from someone else to give them a jolt and bring them back to life.
Other things I remember only to well. Some I wish I could forget.
But no complaints here, it was a good life. Now I wonder where I put that kite.
Who listens?
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from having mental health issues, it’s that communication is key. Take it from someone who knows, I bottled things up or tried to deal with them on my own for a lot longer than I should have.
The process of opening yourself up to another person is a complex one, there is always that fear of rejection or disbelief. There is also the realisation that once you have decided to speak, people may choose not to listen and believe me, there is nothing worse than not being heard.
It took me a long time to realise that my internal turmoil was not visible on the outside and I became accustomed to being referred to as quirky or weird. Oddly enough, as the years passed I became quite proud of those two monikers, it meant I was an individual.
Looking back, I think I expected people to instantly recognise what my flaws were and make allowances for them, the problem was, I needed to back up the expectation with explanation, which was something I never did. Instead, I wore people out with my complex thought processes bourne from a lifetimes lack of self confidence.
Never be afraid to talk, and to keep talking until someone listens. We don’t even have to open our mouths, we can also use our fingers to weave their magic via pen, notebook or keyboard. Its therapeutic. I’ve found that noting my words down, be that in a journal or online, helps me to process the particular issue I’m facing. It might not always provide a solution, and that’s ok, because sometimes all that is needed is a good dose of reality.
I’m better at voicing my feelings, but I’m not quite adept at it yet. I still tend to back away if challenged and I often get frustrated when the person who I am voicing my concerns to either interprets it as a string of excuses or chalks it down to my anxiety.
One thing is for sure though, I will keep talking, it’s taken me so long to get to this point. I can’t stop now.
As Mandy Hale once said, ‘Just be yourself. Let people see the real, imperfect, flawed, quirky, weird, beautiful and magical person that you are.’
Tomorrow is a new day
It’s probably a bad idea to write a blog post when you’re cross, and I am cross today. Its been another fun filled day in the office and I’ve completely fallen out with myself. About 45 minutes after going in, I wanted to turn on my heel and go back out, but I didn’t have the balls.
It’s fitting I suppose that I should feel like this, because I’ve finally stopped wondering what I am going to do with my blog. After much pondering, humming and haaahing I’ve decided I’m going to do nothing. Nothing drastic anyway.
This blog is important for me, especially on days like today where I need to stop, sit down and have a serious fucking think about where my life is going.
You see if it wasn’t for this space and it’s blank pages, I probably wouldn’t talk about the veritable storm that goes on between my ears. Instead I’d dwell, ponder and make mountains out of molehills. More so than I do normally.
I’m not the same person I was four years ago when I started this blog and it’s unlikely that I ever will be again, so I need to stop pretending to be someone I am not and embrace who I am becoming instead.
In order to do that I need to be able to write everything and about all parts of me. When I started blogging and chose to be anonymous, things were a lot easier, but when people from real life started to find out my words became stifled. So much so that despite the fact that my mind was awash with ideas, many posts remained in my head unwritten.
In reality I like to think that sometimes I can be funny, but I am hounded by anxiety and I have no doubt that often times depression nips at my heels. So I suppose in essence that means there are two sides to me, on one hand we have the public persona and on the other we have the private one. Although both are very different, when they are put together they make up the person I am.
I need and want to be able to express myself on this blog, and going forward that is something I am going to try to do. I don’t need anyone to worry about me. I find writing extremely therapeutic, it helps me to put things into perspective and sort them out. I don’t write for sympathy and nor do I want sympathy. I’m not the only person in the world with problems and this wonderful community proves that. We work and we support each other and for me that is the real beauty behind blogging.
So, you’re stuck with me for a while longer. I’ve decided to take you on my journey of discovery. It’s all about finding out who I am.
Some days there will be tears and some days there will be laughter, but that’s all part of life isn’t it, we have to take the good with the bad.
Thank you so much for being here for the last however many years, months or days you have followed, I have no doubt I have received more from this community than I have given and I feel truly blessed to be a part of it.
To celebrate and as a present to myself, I finally mapped my domain name, I doubt you will have noticed, but it’s just something small that makes things a little more permanent for me.
Also, excluding social media followers, one of my goals was always to reach 1000 followers on WordPress itself. At the time of writing this post there are 998. I’ve decided that’s good enough because in life I am never really quite where I want to be, but it doesn’t stop me trying anyway.
Just over four years ago I had nothing, just some words on a page and no followers. Now I am a part of something I love, and I hope that continues for a long time.
P.s I’m not cross any more :)
Mid Week Musings
Normally I am not a fan of the sunshine, but today it feels nice.
I’ve been feeling rubbish this last few days, it resulted in me being sent home sick on Friday, in fact being driven home. The whole corridor hearing me huey was definitely not a highlight of my career and not something I’d like to repeat either. Those toilets are very fecking low.
Aside from the vomiting there was this overwhelming sense of tiredness. I got into bed on Friday and slept away the whole day. Clearly I needed it, but man I was pissed, I had so many things I wanted to do at the weekend. As a consequence nothing got done, but hey shit happens, literally.
Lamenting my lost weekend I returned to work yesterday. It was fine once I got over the initial anxiety of returning.
It’s hard to believe that in just a few short weeks Summer will be over and the kids will be returning to school. It’s been so busy in work I hardly saw the time pass and virtually no days off has meant there has been very little merriment as well. Look at me pretending I’m all exciting and stuff.
I like September and getting out and about while it’s still relatively nice but the roads are perhaps not as busy. I’ll have to try and talk the Fathership into some adventures.
For now though it’s about knuckling down and getting things finished. It’s going to mean the loss of a few more weekends but it needs to be done. I can’t wait until my new work colleague is able to cover for a couple of days so I can avail of some leave, she managed great when I was sick so we’re on the right track.
I’m still thinking about the blog and what I’m going to do with it. I’ve read a few posts this week from people who have, for one reason or another, decided to call time on their blogs. I wonder sometimes if it is a stage we all go through, where what we started no longer becomes fit for purpose. I love my blog, but I’m not the same person I was 4 years ago when I began.
Each day I worry that there are not enough ideas in my head to keep me going, but somehow I still manage to make posts, so I guess that’s something right!?
Well my stop is next, unbeknownst to you, you were on my journey to work with me, that said you’ll not be reading this until my journey home, which is when I will have time to badly proof read and publish it.
I hope your day was a good one Eejits :)
All the small things
I feel like I’ve been struggling a bit of late. Struggling to keep on top of my mental well-being, which in turn has resulted in an inability to write.
In the face of competing demands I just seem to shut down. I’d been trying to juggle too many things and the pressure was beginning to show. I was starting to dread going to work because I wasn’t sure I could cope with any more of the curve balls it had to throw at me.
I was worried about other things I needed to complete outside of work and how I was going to get the time to get them done.
I was tired. I am tired.
I was forgetting though that I am just one person. I can’t do everything all at once and I deserve time for myself without feeling guilty about it.
Its so easy when the pressures on to forget about the little things and the little things are actually very important.
Like the fact that I love my new work colleague, in fact all my colleagues. I love how she gets my sense of humour and work aside it’s like she’s always been there. She fits in.
I love that I feel comfortable with these people and that they can turn my frown upside down.
I love my friends, who without knowing I’m feeling the darkness give me something to brighten it, in the form of an empty gin bottle and a rechargable string of lights. Like I said, small things mean a lot.
I need to not forget these things, because they make this life what it is. It’s far from perfect, but for every low there is a high, we just need to acknowledge that.
So……
Hey, how’s tricks?
See what I did there? I’m deflecting, putting the onus on you to start a conversation because I have nothing to say, literally nothing.
I keep feeling like I should write. I want to write. But I’ve got zip, just dead space between my ears, a whole shit load of nowt.
I buy too much stationary, because when I’m in a funk it makes me feel better. It used to be shoes and handbags, but I can’t afford them anymore, mainly because I bought too many when I could. I would do a car boot sale, but I’d be one of those people who’d look longingly at my stuff and then squirrel it away on the promise that I’d sell it next time.
So here I am with all this stationary and still I have nothing. What’s the point of the pen and the notebook I ask myself if I’ve no words to fill the pages with.
I could tell you what’s going on in my head, but most of the time I don’t know myself. It’s a scarey place in there and not somewhere even I want to willingly go.
I could tell you what’s going on in my life, but apart from work and my recent addiction to Game of Thrones there isn’t much else. A lot of the time it feels like the world is moving forward and I’m standing on the sidelines watching it go by.
So, what do you do when you’ve got nothing. Well you do what I just did and waffle whatever is in your head hoping that the people who are crazy enough to read your blog forgive you and understand that normality, whatever that is, will one day return.
I feel like a fence. I need to get over myself, shut the gate on my insecurities and just write!
Big Up Your Blog!
Ritu explains it better than I could.
Suzie has created a wonderful place, I’ve met some great people.
Why not check it out for yourself :)
Grabbing a coffee
This is me, tired little me, drinking coffee from the cup that my kind colleague got me for my birthday last week, whilst travelling on the train to face another exciting day at work.
In real life I am wearing the same kind of loopy, at the end of my tether expression. It’s been a long week, in fact it’s been a long two months but hopefully there is hope on the horizon.
I’ve been working extra hours and weekends to try and keep up with work since my colleague left in April. If you didn’t notice that I wasn’t around as much don’t worry, just lament the fact that you didn’t enjoy the peace and quiet while you had the chance.
There’s been few days off apart from the two when we went to Donegal and one that replaced a lost weekend day and it’s starting to tell on both me and my house which hasn’t been getting the love and attention it deserves.
This weekend is going to be another hectic one sadly, so in fact there most likely won’t be a weekend at all as I have to attend things planned each day that will most likely extend into the night. I’m going to struggle, firstly because I am going to have to people, but secondly because I’m going to get no down time and no time to unwind.
I would just love one weekend of peace and quiet, just me, where I don’t have to do anything for anyone else and that includes cooking and cleaning!
Monday my new colleague arrives, so that in itself is going to bring another set of challenges, like training and learning and sorting. She’s a lovely girl and I instantly liked her so that’s a positive, but I need to shield her from being bombarded until she gets to grips with things. I don’t want her running for the hills on the first day.
I’m nervous because it’s been so long since I trained anyone for anything. I’m not very good at taking charge, I’m more of a sheep than a shepherd, so it will be a learning curve for us both.
No one likes change, but it still comes whether we like it or not. I’m trying to think ahead and console meself that there may be stability in my future, and days off. Days off would be lovely.
I just need to make it through the next few weeks.
How have things been in your world?
Self confidence or arrogance?Â
I have no self confidence.Â
Some of my work colleagues would probably not believe you if you told them this fact about me. Others who work with me closely are all to aware.
One of my hopes when I attended counselling was that I would be able to have a better understanding of myself and my lack of self confidence. In some ways I did, but I am in no way cured and every day is a battle that sometimes I’m just to tired to fight.
I will continue to try and see myself in a more positive light, but if I do, I want to make sure I am careful of this new responsibility, because I am genuinely curious as to when self confidence becomes arrogance, or even if it does at all.
I’m never going to be one of those people who walks into a party straight to the centre. I’m more of a sneak in and skirt along the sidelines until I find a group of people I feel comfortable with type of person. That kind of confidence I would love, the ability to walk into a room and not feel like every head has turned to scrutinise me.
Now please don’t think I’m being judgemental, because I am honestly not, it’s just that by not having any, I simply don’t understand how the concept of self confidence works and I am genuinely curious.
For example, if I sent you a picture of myself with the caption ‘Look at me, am I not just the most amazing person you have ever seen’, would you class that as self confidence or arrogance?
Just for the record, I’m not ever likely to utter a sentence like that, and if I ever did, I would fully expect you to give me a clip round the ear and ask me who the hell I thought was.
Or if I sent you a picture with the caption ‘I’m gorgeous aren’t I, I bet you wish you could be me.’ Is that self confidence or arrogance?
I read things sometimes and depending on my mood I either think, wow I wish I was brave enough to make a statement like that, or I think, seriously dude, did you just say that.
I do get there is a wider debate around this topic, because more than looks will make a person awesome. I mean I’m ugly as sin, but I make you chuckle sometimes, right!?!?
I’ve had little experience of online dating, mainly because any time I gave it a try it turned into a disaster, but if the intended object of your affection came out with statements like the above, would you give them a chance or skip on by?
I’m genuinely interested to hear your views, or to have you correct me if I’m barking up the wrong tree.
P.s I am NOT online dating, I’m only using it as an example :) I’ve enough feckin trouble lookin after the Fathership!
P.p.s I have never said what I used as my two examples, but they are messages that have been sent to me!
The Indecisive Eejit 